effectivelywildfandomcom-20200215-history
Episode 308: Playoff Banter Plus Listener Emails
Date October 16, 2013 Summary Ben and Sam discuss the latest action in a pitching-dominated postseason, then answer emails about power outages, platoon splits, and more. Topics * Playing to a set number of runs * Yasiel Puig's playoff approach * Power outages and delays * Hitter and pitcher impact on platoon splits Intro Electric Light Orchestra, "The Lights Go Down" Banter * Tigers pitchers secondary pitch locations * Red Sox vs. Tigers ALCS review * Mental mistakes by playoff veterans Email Questions * Michael: "What if baseball were played until a team scored a set amount of runs? 5 runs, 10 runs, whatever. How would that change the game?" * Dan: "In 1857 under the Knickerbocker rules which governed until 1872 the current 9 inning format was adopted, replacing the previous rule that the first team to score 21 runs won. So of course 21 runs to win is absurdly high for the modern game, what if the total was something like 4? Games would continue until one team scored 4. If the visiting team reached 4 or greater the home team would have the opportunity to exceed or match the total. If the latter occurred the rules would change to the current extra innings format. There'd be no extra inning games because the concept of a nine inning game would be erased. If it took fifteen innings to get to four, so bet it. Four seems right because it means that all grand slams were effectively game winning hits and seems close enough to the current nine inning total that the length of games would not vary too wildly. What would happen to baseball?" * Tim: "Do you think that Carlos Beltran would have taken less offense if Puig had run hard out of the box and ended up with an inside the park home run?" * Wes: "Watching the Red Sox-Tigers in a power delay I couldn't help but wonder what's the rule on a power outage in the middle of a play? Imagine in the 25th inning at midnight, Tigers down by 3 with the bases loaded, two outs, Miguel pops up, the lights go out, nobody can find the ball and it turns into an infield grand slam. Does it stand, do they replay the pitch, dead ball single?" * AJ (Boston, MA): "In light of last night's game I have a question regarding platoon splits. The Tigers brought in Joaquin Benoit, right handed pitchers, instead of phil coke, eft handed pitcher, to face David Ortiz, left handed hitter. Many have said that they agreed with the decision noting that Benoit has been better against left handed batters than against right handed hitters. In an article on Grantland however, Jonah Keri questioned the decision, nothing that Ortiz has been better against right handed pitchers than against left handed pitchers. My question therefore is which of these matters more? In essence does the platoon advantage or disadvantage come more from the pitcher's skill set or the hitter's skill set?" Notes * Sam's research showed the Tigers' pitchers are not commanding their secondary pitches any better than they normally do. * The median game score for the playoffs is a 59. * Sam emailed the podcast's account with a question weeks before about playing to a number of runs, but Ben refused to answer it. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 308: Playoff Banter Plus Listener Emails * ALCS Game 3 Recap: Red Sox 1, Tigers 0 by Sam Miller * What We Learned from the LCS by Jonah Keri Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes